Several weeks ago Yaakov Fuchs, the son of the late R'
Avrohom Fuchs, contacted the Rav Yisroel Moshe Dushinsky's
personal assistant, asking for permission to copy his
approbation for the book Hungarian Yeshivot from Grandeur
to Holocaust (in Hebrew) into his father's other books.
The assistant, to whom the caller's name was totally
unfamiliar, replied that because the rov was very sick he
would be unavailable to answer such questions. Subsequently,
he responded that when HaRav Dushinsky heard him mention the
name Avrohom Fuchs, a broad smile spread across his face and
he granted permission, adding words of praise and
blessing.

HaRav Dushinsky left this world before Pesach. Two weeks
later, during chol hamoed Pesach, R' Avrohom Fuchs
also returned his soul to his Maker. Then on the 27th of
Nisan, HaRav Sholom Moshe Halevi Unger, gavad of
Nitra, passed away as well after a long and difficult life.
This was the closing of another circle, beginning in Hungary,
continuing in the Holocaust and ending in eternal memory,
completing yet another page in Am Yisroel's book of
sorrows.

The name Avrohom Fuchs may not be familiar to the public, but
if you say "the author of The Unheeded Cry," most
people have something to say. The Unheeded Cry is one
of the essential books on Holocaust history and a
heartrending indictment of all those who failed to come to
the aid of European Jewry before it was too late.

When asked about the relationship between his father and
HaRav Michoel Dov Weissmandl, the subject of the book, Yaakov
Fuchs provided a detailed account of the Hungarian Torah
world before the Holocaust, its destruction and the efforts
to save it--and the lifework of one man who tried to
perpetuate Hungarian Jewry.

His Early Years in Hungary

R' Avrohom Fuchs was born in Tasnad, a small agricultural
town in a remote part of Transylvania near the Romanian-
Hungarian border. Jews lived there for hundreds of years,
maintaining lives of Torah, labor and commerce.

For at least the last two hundred years, the area was home to
rabbonim of distinction with yiras Shomayim. They did
not allow the winds of reform and assimilation to penetrate
the kehilloh, although some members of the community
were drawn to a "modern" lifestyle during the years preceding
the Holocaust.

The name Tasnad might have been forgotten, like the names of
many towns throughout Europe that are now remembered only by
those who formerly lived there, had it not been home to the
yeshiva of HaRav Mordechai Brisk (the Maharam Brisk), which
was set up between the two World Wars and for several years
was the biggest, most important yeshiva in Eastern Europe.

R' Avrohom Fuchs was among its talmidim. He was
admitted at the age of 12, when he was still younger than
most of his peers there, because he hailed from the town.

The Maharam Brisk was chosen as the rov of Tasnad in 1919 and
began to organize religious life in the town with great zest.
He improved shechitoh and set up religious
institutions and mutual aid societies. Within a few years he
founded the yeshiva and attended to both its spiritual and
material needs. The talmidim ate at a common dining
hall and slept in the homes of baalei batim.

By the year 5695 (1935) the number of talmidim had
reached 400 and the Rov gave two-and-a-half hour
shiurim to two separate classes. The tight daily
schedule left no free time and the Rov would take note of
everyone who was late or absent. Halachic inquiries were sent
to the Maharam Brisk from all over Hungary, Romania and the
surrounding areas and his responsa books were printed again
and again.

Then the Second World War broke out. The town of Tasnad was
transferred from Hungarian rule to Romanian rule and back
again. Each time the Jews prayed for salvation, yet the
situation only became more and more acute. The yeshiva was
closed, residents were sent to "work camps" and the decrees
and abuse worsened from day to day. In the summer of 5704
(1944) the Maharam was arrested and transferred to the
Shimloi (Szilagysomlyo) Ghetto, where his beard was shaven
off. On the 11th of Sivan 5704 he was killed in the gas
chambers of Auschwitz, Hy"d.

The kehilloh faced a similar fate. The Jews were
gathered together in a ghetto under harrowing conditions and
from there were transferred to Auschwitz for extermination,
in Sivan of 5704. Although it was possible to escape from the
ghetto, the community was not alerted by the leadership in
Budapest to the true meaning of Auschwitz. In addition, the
local residents were antisemitic and would not have provided
a safe haven.

The handful of Tasnad Jews who survived tried to return to
their homes after the war, only to find that nobody was left.
They tried to resume their previous existence there and even
tried to bring collaborators to trial, but the prevailing
atmosphere was unaccommodating and eventually they left the
town, never to return.

*

Avrohom Fuchs recounts all this and more in his book,
Tasnad. "Abba felt the pain of the forsaken town,"
says Yaakov Fuchs. "During the period it was published, the
1970s, a wave of memoirs and historical accounts of various
kehillos swept through Israel. All of the books that
appeared were on kehillos in Poland and Lithuania, and
nothing on Hungary. Abba was working as a teacher but he felt
a moral obligation to record the memory of his town."

As always Avrohom Fuchs did meticulous research, unlike many
other books of this genre written in an amateur fashion by
former members of the kehilloh and based primarily on
memory -- often selective memory. (Many books place great
emphasis on Zionist activity and hardly mention religious
life and rabbonim from past generations.)

Fuchs interviewed countless people and examined numerous
documents. He gathered innumerable photographs, testimonies,
letters, newspaper clippings-- anything that offered
additional information on the town. And he did not take a
subjective stance, selecting only what appealed to his
sensibilities. Everything went in, producing a monument to
the memory of all members of the kehilloh. "Many say
Tasnad is the best [Holocaust] memoir in print," says
Yaakov.

Survival

R' Avrohom survived the Holocaust by leaving Tasnad before it
was too late. When antisemitism was stepped up and Hungarian
collaborators closed Yeshivas Tasnad, R' Avrohom Fuchs fled,
all alone, to the capital city of Budapest. Rumors of Nazi
atrocities did not reach Budapest, perhaps because Dr. Reszoe
Kasztner and his associates kept the reports away from the
public since they had business dealings with Nazi leaders.

He spent two years in Budapest, and when the Germans occupied
the city in 1944 he was sent to a work camp for youths where
he remained until the end of the War, innocently thinking
other Jews shared his fate. Only when he returned to Tasnad
after the liberation did he realize the extent of the
Holocaust. Of his entire family only one brother and one
sister remained alive. When he heard his sister was at the
displaced persons' camp at Bergen-Belsen he began to walk
towards Germany on foot. At the time, crossing such
international borders was still a dangerous prospect.

After reaching Bergen-Belsen R' Avrohom completed his secular
studies at a school set up there. In 5707 he sought
permission to go to Eretz Yisroel on aliyah, but was unable
to secure a certificate. Instead he went to Canada and only
after several years had passed did he arrive in Israel and
start a family.

During the initial years following the Holocaust, survivors
spoke very little about their painful pasts. In Eretz Yisroel
the Yishuv did not want to hear about it. The atmosphere
Zionist leaders created implied European Jews were cowards
who went to their deaths like sheep to the slaughter.
Meanwhile the survivors themselves yearned to rebuild normal
lives. The Kasztner Trial and later the Eichmann trial
altered the mood, and dozens of books and articles on the
Holocaust began to appear.

Tasnad was Avrohom Fuchs' first venture into his
fervent involvement in Hungarian Jewry and the Holocaust. For
many years to come he wrote one book after another.

Fuchs felt the history of Hungarian Jewry--particularly the
yeshivas--had been neglected, even famous yeshivas like the
Chasam Sofer's Yeshivas Pressburg (also known by its
Slovakian name, Bratislava). He began to study the topic
systematically, gleaning every available crumb of information
with scientific thoroughness. The final result was a thick
volume on Hungary's leading yeshivas. The book received great
accolades, but alumni of yeshivas that went unmentioned
expressed their resentment.

Undeterred, R' Fuchs launched a second round of research,
this time focusing on all of the small, less- known yeshivas.
The second volume of Hungarian Yeshivot from Grandeur to
Holocaust completed the project, bringing every
Hungarian yeshiva onto the pages of history.

Even when people with firsthand experience to share were
located, the task of extracting the information from them was
not always easy. "In those days [the 1970s] there were [few]
telephones in Israel," recounts Yaakov Fuchs, "Abba simply
went from one person to the next, going from house to house,
to hear firsthand testimonies. I was a young boy, but I spent
a lot of time chasing around the country with him."

R' Avrohom would arrive, without advance notice, at each of
the addresses he managed to obtain of Hungarian Holocaust
survivors or Hungarian Jews who got out before the Holocaust.
Generally, they were uncomfortable talking about the past,
saying, "I don't have time. It's bitul Torah," or "I
don't have the strength to open old wounds."

R' Avrohom would remain undaunted. "Maybe I could have a
glass of water after coming so far?" That would gain him
entry into their home. Then he would ask about photographs.
"Do you happen to have pictures of the yeshiva or the town?"
Invariably a conversation would develop as the memories began
to flow.

"On more than one occasion," recalls Yaakov, "we would set a
date for another conversation and upon his return Abba found
the man had already passed away and there was nobody to talk
to."

R' Avrohom also had an original way of gathering photographs.
Since the photos were very valuable to their owners who were
unwilling to let them out of their sight, he would carry
professional photography equipment, thus producing a
duplicate that rivaled the original.

When individual orders were placed, he often delivered the
book in person, casually inquiring why the buyer was
interested in the book. In many cases the ensuing
conversation provided material for the next book.

In addition to personal testimony R' Avrohom spent many long
hours poring over library materials, studying period
newspapers, reading every relevant history book and all
responsa seforim, from which he was able to derive
considerable historical material. He would labor diligently
over the source material, always striving to remain as
objective as possible.

HaRav Unger passed away during the War. HaRav Weissmandl
passed away in 1957. Fuchs worked on the book about him
during the 1970s. Although he did not know either of them
personally, he was able to enter their lives and gain close
familiarity with their personalities through considerable
amounts of material he obtained from HaRav Weissmandl's
brother-in-law and from many Nitra Yeshiva students, and in
particular from from HaRav Sholom Moshe Unger, who carried on
his father's legacy until he, too, passed away just weeks
ago.

R' Avrohom was responsible for bringing wide publicity to
HaRav Weissmandl's desperate attempts to save the remaining
survivors, through negotiations with the Nazis, using money
pledged by Jews from around the world. The money failed to
arrive and HaRav Weissmandl's call fell on deaf ears.

After the war, HaRav Weissmandl published many of the letters
he wrote during the war in a book called, Min
Hameitzar. The book did not draw the response it deserved
for several reasons: The rabbinical writing style used in the
letters was very heavy and difficult to understand, and there
was nobody to translate it into more readable Hebrew without
losing the hidden meanings and suggestions the letters
contained.

Another reason was the Mapai schemes still prevalent in
Israel at the time. Party heads who had acted as "heads of
the Yishuv and heads of world Zionism" during the war, were
reluctant to have their apathy toward the fate of European
Jewry divulged, making efforts to remove every book not to
their liking from bookstore shelves, sometimes even
threatening store owners.

But the primary reason was that Holocaust historians regarded
testimonials by chareidi Jews with little respect. Had the
cry gone out from a partisan, perhaps they would have
listened to him, but when a chareidi Jew blasts Jewish
leadership in his letters he meets derision, both at the time
of publication and years later when establishment historians
research recent history with apparent objectivity. Anyone who
remembers the reception accorded to Ben Hecht's
Perfidy can understand this.

Later the national mood shifted. The Likud rose to power,
making the time ripe to raise the painful subject once again.
Avrohom Fuchs' book Karati Ve'ein Oneh (5743) redeemed
Min Hameitzar and brought it to the public's
attention, at least for a while. Once again it became
impossible to overlook Zionism's part in silencing reports on
the Holocaust, and its unwillingness to make monetary efforts
to redeem the Jews from the gas chambers.

HaRav Weissmandl

HaRav Chaim Michoel Dov Weissmandl was born in Debrecen,
Hungary. While he was still a young boy he moved with his
family to the town of Trnava, where his father served as a
shochet. He became a talmid chochom at a young
age. He prepared his bar mitzvah droshoh himself and
his grandfather, recognizing his ability, asked him to stash
it away, promising him a sum of money not to deliver it.

HaRav Weissmandl delivered it decades later before the
talmidim of his yeshiva, who were greatly impressed by
its acuity. Only afterwards did he reveal to them that he had
prepared it at the age of 12 (and had not forgotten it
despite the hardships of the war).

HaRav Chaim Michoel Dov was a talmid of HaRav Shmuel
Dovid Unger when the latter was serving as the rov of Trnava.
When HaRav Unger was appointed rov of Nitra, R' Chaim Michoel
Dov tried to persuade him to stay in Trnava, but HaRav Unger
said, "My heart tells me a time will come when there will be
no yeshiva anywhere beside Nitra, and I want to be there."

Later his intuition proved true. The yeshiva in Nitra
continued to operate almost until the end of the war and was
the last yeshiva functioning in occupied Europe.

R' Chaim Michoel Dov moved to Nitra with HaRav Unger and
absorbed himself in his learning. He also delved into the
task of deciphering ancient handwritten Talmudic manuscripts,
sometimes traveling as far as Oxford, England in the course
of his work. In 5697 (1937) he married his rebbe's daughter,
and by the time of the Holocaust he already had five
children, Hy'd.

When the atrocities began, HaRav Weissmandl immediately
enlisted himself to come to the aid of his brethren without
anybody directing him to do so and without an official
appointment.

His first action was to save 40 Austrian rabbonim whom the
Nazis had put on a boat sailing to Czechoslovakia. The Czechs
denied them entry and thus the boat remained adrift. HaRav
Weissmandl flew to England where he persuaded the Archbishop
of Canterbury and the British Foreign Ministry to grant them
immigration visas to Great Britain, a daring initiative that
succeeded thanks to HaRav Weissmandl's strong personality.

A previous effort had already met a cool reception by the
British and directives by the Foreign Ministry not to attend
to the matter. R' Avrohom Fuchs found the original documents
in the archives of the British Foreign Ministry, which was
apparently unashamed to file the directives.

From this point on, HaRav Weissmandl devoted all of his being
to saving Slovakian Jewry. He traveled back and forth between
the capital city of Pressburg and his own town of Nitra,
where he consulted with HaRav Unger every step of the way.

Dr. Kasztner's later, and much more famous, negotiation with
the Nazis was actually a belated negotiation attempt to save
Jews. Actually, HaRav Weissmandl negotiated with the Germans
as early as 1942 and managed to bribe them and to halt the
deportations from Slovakia. HaRav Weissmandl attempted to
build upon this success and expand it to all German-occupied
territory in Hungary. This negotiation failed when HaRav
Weissmandl was not able to deliver the $2 million bribe he
had promised. Thus, the million Jews were murdered. Later on,
when Germany took over Hungary as well, Rabbi Weissmandl
delivered a message to the Jewish community in Budapest to
negotiate with the Germans.

Therefore, it was HaRav Weissmandl who gave Dr. Kasztner the
idea of redeeming the Jews for money, an idea that was
eventually carried out only through the famous trainload of
dignitaries. HaRav Weissmandl was of course not responsible
for Dr. Kasztner's failed ransom efforts and his success in
managing to extract one train-load is arguably a continuation
of HaRav Weissmandl's earlier efforts.

The idea to stop the deportations to the death camps was
conceived by HaRav Weissmandl following several conversations
he heard. He realized Dieter Wisliceny, the Gestapo expert on
Jewish affairs attached to the German embassy at Bratislava
(who was mentioned numerous times during the Kasztner trial),
would be willing to delay the deportations in exchange for
large sums of money. HaRav Weissmandl of course did not have
such resources available and he began to dispatch dozens of
urgent letters to Jews around the world to raise the
necessary funds.

One of the primary addresses was Saly Mayer, head of the
Joint Distribution Committee's office in Geneva. Mayer
responded to the desperate pleas with indifference. R'
Avrohom notes that HaRav Weissmandl had never been a Zionist,
but when he saw how the Zionist leadership did not care if
the majority of non- Zionist European Jewry was annihilated,
he became a radical anti-Zionist.

For example, Saly Mayer reacted to a demand by Mrs. Gisi
Fleischmann--a Zionist leader from Slovakia (and one of HaRav
Unger's relatives) who assisted HaRav Weissmandl greatly in
his rescue efforts--by saying that the stories coming back
from the Jews about what were going on were exaggerated. He
alleged that Eastern European Jews (Ostjuden) had a
habit of exaggerating to squeeze people for money. A sum of
$50,000 for the rescue of Slovakian Jewry was too high, he
said, and also the Americans did not allow the transfer of
funds to the enemy.

Ultimately an opportunity arose to save the remnants of
European Jewry in exchange for $2 million--$2 per person--but
the Joint claimed it did not have that much money available.
After the war inquiries showed the organization had $64
million at its disposal.

Even more astonishing was the response by a Zionist leader
named Nathan Schwalb who claimed, "Only through blood will we
get the Land," implying that the death of European Jewry
would act as an incentive to the world's leading nations to
grant the Land of Israel to the Jews.

HaRav Weissmandl's Other Efforts

Even if we would prefer not to dig up the past-- particularly
since most of the key figures are no longer living and they
cannot be judged in hindsight-- it cannot be ignored. Events
during the war left open wounds that constantly fester
anew.

HaRav Weissmandl, a spiritual giant, should not be
underestimated. He could have dedicated his prodigious talent
to Torah study, but instead he applied his head to the task
of forging ideas to rescue his people.

"The HaGaon Rav Chaim Michoel Dov was a hero in Yisroel,"
writes R' Avrohom Fuchs. "He and his partners endangered
themselves by making empty promises to the Germans when they
lacked the funds to cover them . . . They had to invent lies
. . . Through the slightest mistake, all of them could have
been summarily executed. Negotiations of this sort required
superb mental powers . . . "

One of the most imaginative lies HaRav Weissmandl invented
was a character named Ferdinand Roth. He was supposedly the
representative of world Jewry. Since the Nazis believed their
own libel that all of world Jewry was linked monetarily,
HaRav Weissmandl built on this myth, easily convincing them
that such a figure existed and could provide them the money.
These perilous tactics managed to stop the transport of
Slovakian Jews to the death camps from 1942 to 1944. When the
Nazis realized the money would not materialize, and following
a national uprising in Slovakia in 1944, the deportations
resumed.

One of HaRav Weissmandl's inventive ideas saved HaRav Unger
and the yeshiva from being immediately deported to the death
camps in 1942. At the time the Slovaks were still
collaborating with the Nazis. One of the stipulations of
their agreement, strangely, forbade harming the Chief Rabbi
of Slovakia. HaRav Weissmandl discovered this clause and
decided to secure HaRav Unger an appointment as the Chief
Rabbi of Slovakia. He called people in dozens of different
government posts, sent telegrams and used his connections. A
telephone was a rare and expensive item at the time, but
HaRav Weissmandl spared no expense.

Eventually he received the appointment and with it came
special protection for the yeshiva in Nitra, which acquired
the status of a sort of "Jewish Vatican," a semi-autonomous
authority whose subjects could not be harmed. This allowed
the talmidim to continue learning relatively
undisturbed almost until the end of the war. The yeshiva
grounds, which were relatively protected, served as a hiding-
place for other Jews as well. Although German soldiers
conducted periodic searches, the fugitives were secreted into
hiding- places prepared in advance.

As the war progressed the situation worsened. HaRav
Weissmandl received precise reports on what was taking place
at Auschwitz and tried to call on the whole world to halt the
annihilation, by bombing the gas chambers and the railroad
tracks leading to the camps. Yet these calls went
unanswered.

"In the face of this horrible sight, those who are sane must
go mad and those who have yet to go mad are not sane," wrote
HaRav Weissmandl, but the world remained "sane" and
complacent. His letters traveled through hell and high water
to reach their destinations, yet it seemed as if they were
never received. The Americans were less than eager to blow up
the killing machine.

The Partisans

The uprising by the Slovakian partisans spelled disaster for
Slovakian Jewry. At the beginning of Elul 5704 (1944) HaRav
Unger was on vacation in the forests near Nitra when he heard
the Germans were liquidating the Jews of Nitra. He remained
in the forest with his son, R' Sholom Moshe, and with a loyal
talmid. They wandered through the forests and hid in
caves. Even under such circumstances HaRav Unger refrained
from eating maacholos asuros. On the 9th of Adar 5705
he related his will to his son and returned his soul to his
Maker. R' Sholom Moshe survived the war and returned to
Nitra.

Meanwhile HaRav Weissmandl was arrested with his family and,
following various wanderings, was sent to Auschwitz in a
crowded cattle car. Even here he continued to show
extraordinary resourcefulness. He hid a miniature saw inside
a loaf of bread and during the journey sawed through the door
and jumped out, suffering anquish of conscience over the
family he left behind. He arrived at one of the villages near
Pressburg and from there made his way to a bunker where a
printer from Pressburg hid a number of Jews, including the
Stropkover Rebbe.

His sense of leadership intact, somehow he forged contact
with Kasztner. Just days before the war ended, Kasztner
dispatched a truck driven by SS soldiers to pick up Jews in
several bunkers and drive them to Switzerland. In fact, the
Jews were relatively safe in the bunkers and were shocked to
see the SS arrive at the bunker. Apparently the SS wanted to
prepare excuses for the trials they expected after the
war.

HaRav Weissmandl arrived in Switzerland broken in body and
soul, but he began to take care of the yeshiva, which had
returned and reopened under HaRav Sholom Moshe Unger.

Clearly the yeshiva could not continue to function in Nitra.
HaRav Weissmandl, who had temporarily relocated to the US,
worked hard to bring the yeshiva across the Atlantic. Yet the
US did not receive them with open arms. American Jews were
indifferent to the fate of Holocaust refugees and only
through superhuman efforts was HaRav Weissmandl able to
establish the yeshiva at Mt. Kisco, New York. He selected
this rural site to provide a quiet place that would allow the
Holocaust refugees to recover from their harrowing
experiences.

Once again HaRav Weissmandl was able to devote himself to
Torah study. He not only gave shiurim and served as
rosh yeshiva, but he also tended to the needs of his
talmidim, who were like his own children. For the rest
of his life he continued to mourn over the churban of
European Jewry and the loss of his family. On the 6th of
Kislev 5718 (1957) he suffered a heart attack and passed
away.

Following his petiroh HaRav Sholom Moshe Unger took
over the yeshiva his father founded. Under his leadership for
nearly 50 years it continued to grow. Today it is considered
one of the leading Chassidic yeshivas in the US, with
thousands of talmidim all around the country.

R' Avrohom Fuchs's Further Research

R' Yaakov Fuchs notes that his father's literary research did
not end at this point. One research project led to another.
During the course of his work on Hungarian yeshivas R'
Avrohom Fuchs gathered a large amount of material on the
Satmar Rebbe, HaRav Yoel Teitelbaum, zt'l, who was
spared through Kasztner's underground railroad and went on to
set up an entire dynasty in the US. Fuchs released his book
on the Satmar Rebbe shortly after his petiroh and the
book was quickly disseminated and well received by Satmar
chassidim.

His subsequent book was one of the first and most important
books of its kind. Titled The Holocaust in Rabbinical
Sources, it organized the responsa and droshos
according to the respective lands where they were written,
with an extensive introduction on the history of each place
before and during the Holocaust.

Undoubtedly, R' Fuchs felt that Hungarian Yeshivot from
Grandeur to Holocaust was his most important work even
if it is not the best known. It was this work that he
requested the family write on his tombstone.

R' Avrohom Fuchs was very sick for the last few years and was
unable to publish any new books. The news of his
petiroh went almost unannounced, since he left This
World during Chol Hamoed Pesach. Perhaps this article will in
some measure commemorate his lifework.

About Tasnad

It was 59 years ago on yom tov Sheini Shel Shavuos
that the Tasnad community along with HaRav Mordechai Brisk
were deported to Auschwitz. They arrived Auchwitz a few days
later on 11 Sivan, when most of the community was
murdered.

Tasnad, a small town in Transylvania on the border between
Romania and Hungary, had a Jewish population of about 800
people. In this agricultural town, the Jews fulfilled an
important economic role. Many of them were traders. They were
active as merchants of wine, grains, cattle, poultry and as
shopkeepers. Part of this merchandise was exported abroad or
distributed to other towns. Some of the Jews were involved in
agricultural activities of handcraft. Many of them were also
professionals, mainly doctors and lawyers. It was the home of
several famous rabbonim, among them HaRav Chaim Betzalel
Panet, the elder son of the Mar'ei Yechezkel.

Tasnad is only one of many such communities in Transylvannia,
but it became unique because of its famous yeshiva in the
early part of the twentieth century. HaRav Mordechai Brisk
was known as one of the greatest Talmudic scholars of the day
and as an outstanding pedagogue. Tasnad became the home to
Hungary's largest yeshiva, housing 400 to 500 talmidim
every year.

During the war, the Hungarian authorities limited the freedom
of the Jews and gradually made life unbearable there.
Eventually, the yeshiva was shut down. In the days before the
deportations, the Hungarian Police surrounded the HaRav
Brisk's house, isolating him from contact with the community.
Later on, he was forced to the Shimloi Ghetto where his beard
was shaven off. HaRav Brisk watched silently as his
congregation received similar treatment.

At the risk of his life, he put on his teffilin and
davened in his tent and under the blankets while lying
on the floor. Outside, one of his relatives stood on guard to
warn him of an approaching guard. His son, Berale, was caught
davening and was severely punished by the guards using
their standard technique of hanging him by his hands
handcuffed behind the back until he fainted.

In the ghetto, HaRav Brisk seldom spoke, and he would walk
around while humming the tune to the words of "Chamol Al
Ma'asecho" from the Rosh HaShonnoh davening. A few
days later, they were all taken to Auschwitz. May G-d avenge
their blood.

Today, HaRav Yehoshua Brisk, grandson of the MaHaRam Brisk,
continues the way of his forefathers and leads the Tasnad
Yeshiva in Netanya.

R' Avrhom Fuchs, was born and raised in this town. The book
Tasnad and the Yeshiva of MaHaram Brisk was his first
book, written as a tribute to his community. This is also the
first of R' Avrohom Fuchs' books to be reprinted by his
children.